The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1887-03-23
DIR. TALMAGE IN THE WEST
"No MAN CARED FOR MY SOUL
CHEER FOR THE DISHEARTENED.


mo MAN CARED FOR MY SOUL
CHEER FOR THE DlSHEARTENED.
No Blame Attaches to Those Who Are
Able to Render Assistance If They Are
Not Asked-If You Miss Heaven 1t
VIII BE Your Own Fault.
KANSAS CITY. Mo. March 20-The Rev
T. Dewitt Talmage, d. D., preached in the
Second Presbyterian church of this place this
morning. He arrived here Yesterday from
st. Louis, and is stopping over Sunday on his
way to Topeka, Kan After expounding an
appropriate chapter he gave out the hymn
beginning:
Jesus, lover OF my soul
Let me to Thy bosom fly
His subject was @Cheer for the Disheart-
ened," and his text, Psalms cxlii, V. 4: "No
man cared for my SOUL DR. Talmage said:
David, the rubicund lad, had become the
battle worn warrior. Three thousand armed
men in pursuit Of him, he had hidden in the
cave Of Engedi, near the coast Of the Dead
Sea- Utterly tagged out with the pursuit, as
you have often been worn out with the trials
of life. he sat down and cried out. "No man
cared for my soul"
If you should fall through hatchway, or
slip from scafolding, or drop through
skylight, there would be hundreds Of people
who would come around and pick up your
body and carry it 20 your home or to the
hospital saw a great crowd Of people in
the street, and asked: what is the matterf"
and found out that a poor laboring man had
fallen under sunstroke; and all our eyes were
filled with tears at the thought of his dis
tracted wife and his desolated home.
We are all sympathetic with physical di-
saster, but how little sympathy for spiritual
woesi There are men in this house who have
come TO midlife who have never yet been once
personally accosted about their eternal vel
fare A great sermon dropped into an audi
ence Of hundreds of thousands will do its
work: but if this world is ever to be brought
TO God it will be through little sermons
preached TO private Christians, to an audi
ence Of one The sisters letter postmarked
at the village-the word uttered in your
hearing, half of smiles and half Of tears-the
religious postscript to business letter-the
card left at the door when you had some kind
Of trouble-the anxious look of some one
across church aisle while an earnest sermon
was being preached, swung you into the
kingdom Of God But there are hundreds Of
people in this house who will take the word
that David used in the past tense, and employ
it in the present tense, and cry out: "No man
cares for my soul"
You feel as you go out day by day in the
tug and iostle Of life that it is every man for
himself You can endure the pressure of
commercial affairs, and would consider it
almost mpertincnt for any one to ask you
whether you are making losing money
But there have been times when you would
have drawn your check for thousands of dol
lars if some would only help your soul out Of
its perplexities There are questions about
your higher destiny that ache and distract,
and agonize you at times Let no one sup
pose that because you are busy all day with
hardware, or drygoods, or groceries, or grain,
that your thoughts no longer than your
yard stick and stop at the brass headed nails
Of the store counter. When you speak once
about religious things you think 5000 times.
They call you wording. You are not
wording. OF course You are Industrious
and keep busy, but you have had your eyes
opened to the realities of the next world
You are not fool You know better
than any one can tell. You know that
few years at most will wind up your
earthly engagements, and that you will take
residence in a distant sphere where all your
business adroitness would be a superfluity
You sometimes think till yonr head aches
about great religious subjects. You go down
the street with your eyes fixed on the pave
ment, oblivious of the passing multitudes,
your thoughts gone on eternal expedition.
You wonder if the Bible is true, how much of
1t is literal and how much is figurative law,
IL Christ be God, if there is anything like
retribution, il you are immortal, if a resur-
rection will ever take place, what the occupa-
ton of your departed kindred is what you
will be 10000 years from now. With cul-
tured placidity of countenance you are on
fire with agitations of soul. Gu. this solitary
anxiety OF your whole lifetimeI You have
sold goods to or bought them from Christian
people for ten years, and they have never
whispered one word of spiritual counsel. You
have passed up and down the aisles of
churches with men who knew that you had
no hope of heaven, and talked about the wea-
Their and about your physical health, and
about everything but that concerning which
you most wanted to hear them speak, VIZ,
your everlasting spirit Times without num-
Der you have felt in your heart, il you have
not uttered it with your lips, mo man cares
for my soul"
There have been times when you were es-
pecially pliable on the great subject of re-
ligon 1t was so, for instance, after you had
lost your property. You had great many
letters blowing you up for being unfortunate
You showed that there had been a concatena-
ton of circumstances and that your insol-
vency no fault of yours Your creditors
talked to you as though they would have 100
cents on the dollar your life. Protest
after protest tumbled in on your desk Men
who used to take your hand with both of
theirs and shake it violently, now pass you on
the street with an almost imperceptible nod
After six or eight hours of scalding business
anxiety you 60 home and you shut the door.
and throw yourself ON the sofa and you feel
in a state of despair. You wish that some
one would come in and break up the gloom.
Everything seems to be against you-ths
bank against you. Your creditors against
you. Your friends suddenly become criti-
cal against you. All the past against you.
All the future against you. You make re-
proachful outcry: mo man cares for my
soullr
There was another occasion when all the
doors of your heart swung open for sacred
influences. A bright light went out in your
household. Within three or four days there
were compressed sickness, death obsequies.
You were so lonely that 100 people coming
into the house did not break up the solitari-
ness You were almost killed with the
domestic calamity. A few formal, perfume
tory words of consolation were uttered on the
stairs before YOU went to the grave; but you
wanted some one to come and talk over the
whole matter, and recite the alleviations, and
decipher the lessons of the dark bereavement.
No one came. Many a time you could not
sleep until or o'clock in the morning
and then your sleep was a troubled dream, in
which were re-enacted all the scene of sick
ness, and parting, and dissolution Oh, what
days and nights they were! No man seemed
to care for your soul.
There was another occasion when your
heart was very susceptible. There was q
great awakening. There were hundreds OF
people who pressed into the kingdom of God
some of them acquaintance, some business
associates, yes, perhaps some members OF your
own family were baptized by sprinkling Oh
immersion. Christian people thought of you
and they called at your store, but you were
out on business. They stopped at your house
you had gone around TO spend the evening.
They sent kindly message to you; somehow,
by accident, you did not get it. The hfeboat
of the Gospel swept through the surf and
everybody seemed to get in but you. Every
thing seemed to escape you One touch of
personal sympathy would have pushed you
into the kingdom of God. When on COM
munion day your friends went in, and your
sons and daughters went into the church, you
buried your face in your handkerchief and
sobbed: Why am l left outi Everybody
seems to get saved but me- No man cares for
my SOUL
Hearken to revelation have to make 1t
IL a startling statement will s,rrr,r;ca